342 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



ship of Dufay, and more especially under that of Buffon, 

 who made his own reputation conducive to the advantage 

 of the establishment. 



When the revolutionary rulers began to think of re- 

 constructing what they had previously destroyed, the old 

 Jardin du Roi was reconstituted by the Convention in ac- 

 cordance with a report given in by Lakanal with the title 

 of Museum d'Histoire Naturelle. The list of professors 

 nominated by the law of the 10th of June, 1793, is most 

 remarkable. All were more or less illustrious, and some 

 of them were truly great men, as we may see from the 

 following names : — Cuvier, Daubenton, Desfontaines, 

 Dolomieu, Fourcroy, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Haiiy, 

 Laurent de Jussieu, Lacepede, Lamarck, Latreille, 

 Thouin, Vauquelin. It may be well conceived that 

 under such men as these, the impulse given to the 

 natural sciences by Tournefort and Buffon was in 

 no danger of relaxing ; and during fifty years there was 

 scarcely one great discovery made in these branches of 

 knowledge, which did not emanate from the Jardin des 

 Plantes. Notwithstanding our various revolutions, all 

 different forms of government, which succeeded one 

 another with such rapidity for more than half a century, 

 seem fully to have comprehended the glory that an 

 establishment of this kind reflected upon the country ; 

 for although other nations may have partly imitated it, 

 in all essential points it is unique of its kind. The first 

 Empire, the Restoration, and the Monarchy of July have 

 all in turn contributed to improve and enrich this great 

 centre of science. 



The Academy of Sciences, which was founded in 1666, 

 disappeared like all other institutions of the same kind, 

 during the worst times of the revolution.* On the 



* There was only one among all the scientific or literary societies 

 existing in France, which was enabled regularly to hold its meet- 



